You know that special *glow* Maya Angelou always had, the warmth of her smile that seemed always to be a full-body smile?

That’s the glow of living a life she truly loved. Hers was the glow of a woman who was living the life she was meant to live, living in her own fullness, living in her strength and her gentleness, living in her joy and in her pain, sharing herself with others in her uniquely open and uncensored way, sharing her gifts with the world, and breathing in each moment as her true self…

If you’re reading this, you’re probably someone who wants to LOVE your life. You may even be someone who does love your life most of the time. You may not know how to tell exactly. Or you may know that although you love your life some days, in some moments it seems all too clear that your life just isn’t everything you want it to be.

In the blog post below I’ll share The Five Most Important Signs You’re Living a Life You LOVE. Look out for these signs in your own life. Get honest with yourself. You deserve a life you truly love. It’s worth it. So, take a minute or two, scan the signs below, and see what you find. It may feel like you’re taking a good long look in the mirror.

Before you read further and your mind gets cluttered with someone else’s ideas, I invite you to ask yourself: On the days when I am living a life I truly love, how can I tell? How would my best friend be able to tell? How would a stranger be able to tell?

When I work with my life coaching clients who have made the choice to live a life they LOVE, I ask them questions like: If you were living a life you truly loved each and every day, how would you wake up feeling? How would you feel going to sleep at night? When you looked in the mirror, what would be most noticeable?
Here are the top five signs I’ve seen in my coaching clients who have chosen to live lives they love, in the lives of my mentors and successful public figures, and in my own life as well.

1. You notice that you wake up eager to start your day.

Picture this: Your eyes will just barely be starting to open, the alarm may be going off, and way before you’re convinced you’re really awake, the dog, or cat, or kiddo will jump into your arms to make sure that yes, you are in fact awake! Soon your brain will begin to think about your day, what you need to do, who needs what from you, how much time you have left to get ready. You’ll start to become aware of your body, you may feel like stretching or notice the first morning belly whispers that let you know you’ll be getting hungry soon. And here’s the part that’s different when you’re living a life you truly LOVE—you’ll notice that you feel energized, that you feel excited, that the vision you’re starting to imagine in your head of how your day will go is fun to imagine.

Whether you decide to jump out of bed or snuggle with a loved one for a few extra minutes, you’ll be doing so calmly, without self doubt or self judgment or a sense of needing to rush. Whether you wake up with an idea of what you’d like to do that day and feeling eager to get started, or you wake up knowing that the day will be more of an adventure that unfolds organically, you’ll feel pumped to fully participate in it. You won’t be wishing it was a different day of the week or wishing today wasn’t the day you had to do this or that. You won’t be feeling that heavy, pressure-filled feeling of needing to make the day perfect, or present a perfect self, or meet your boss’ or partner’s or child’s or parent’s expectations. When you wake up to a life you truly love, you’ll wake up feeling free, calm, whole, and energized!

2. You feel calm and fulfilled as you’re getting ready to fall asleep.

Imagine brushing your teeth, getting undressed, making your way over to the bed and pulling back the covers, and feeling a sense of satisfaction, like something is very *right.* As you climb into bed and begin to close your eyes, the daily replay will make you smile. You’ll remember moments from your day that felt like gifts. You’ll feel proud of a decision you made or the way you treated yourself or someone else. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment—even if your day was spent lying on the beach soaking in the sunshine—you’ll have a sense that the way you chose to spend your day fit into the bigger vision you have for your life.

You’ll end your day knowing that you did something meaningful, that you finished what you started, and that the way you’ll choose to spend your time the next day will be a natural extension of your choices and efforts and ideas of today. You won’t have this sense of having something hanging over you. You won’t be dreading tomorrow. You’ll have made choices today that send you off into sleep with confidence, clarity, serenity, and ease. When you’re living a life you truly love, there will be a calm you’ll feel at the end of your day that will make it easy for you to give your mind, body, and spirit a true rest. You’ll fall sleep looking forward to tomorrow.

3. You feel grateful throughout your day.

When you’re living a life you truly love, so many moments throughout your day will feel like gifts. At first you may be surprised how often you feel true gratitude. It may come up in the tiniest moments—tasting a favorite food, a quick kiss in the morning, a phone call to an old friend, the satisfaction you feel checking something off your to do list, making plans for an adventure, coming up with a new idea, getting a thank you note in the mail, how fresh the air feels as you breathe it in, how flexible your muscles and joints feel… You’ll find yourself noticing the miraculous nature of so much of your life.

You’ll have this awareness too that none of the moments of your life are guaranteed, that they’d just have easily not happened. You’ll see with greater clarity how your own choices have brought those treasured experiences into your life. You’ll know that you’re a player in your own sense of gratitude, that in large part it’s the wanting to feel grateful that allows you to truly appreciate so many gifts in your life.

You may find that you don’t feel thrilled about every single thing that happens just as soon as it happens. You may also find yourself working to change something, working to fight an injustice, devoting energy to changing your perspective on something, tending to a crisis that came up at home or at work… but what you’ll find is that those moments don’t outweigh the grateful nature of your spirit. Moments of which you aren’t the biggest fan at the start won’t distract you from noticing the many aspects of your life for which you’re truly grateful. You’ll have a sense that you have the tools to tackle any challenge, that you’re up to the task. You won’t be measuring the water in your glass, the time in your day, the energy you have to give everyone who seems to want it, wondering how close you are to empty. You’ll notice the glass being filled with more water than you could ever possibly use up, with more energy and blessings, with more love and connection, with more energy and resolve than you’ll ever need. Any feelings of scarcity will have transformed to become a simple and deep knowledge that you have an abundance of everything you really need in your life. In living a life you love, you’ll be looking for opportunities to give, to share all those things for which you’re most grateful with your loved ones and with the world.

4. You’re able to express yourself easily and openly.

You know those moments when you tell a story or a joke and the punch line comes out better than you could have ever planned it and you’ve got everyone around you roaring with laughter? Can you remember moments in your life when you were so convinced a new idea you had was truly great that the idea seemed to just get better and better every time you told someone about it? What about times when you’ve had something truly difficult you’ve needed to say, something that was going to be hard for someone to hear… Can you remember those times when you said the tough thing and it felt easier than you’d imagined, when you seemed to find exactly the right words to speak your truth in a way that felt like you were really taking care of your needs and also showing care to the other person at the same time?

There’s something really special that happens when you choose to live a life you truly love. Words don’t get caught in the back of your throat. You don’t find yourself wondering what you should or shouldn’t say. You don’t feel confused or unsure of yourself.

Instead, there’s an honesty with which you live your life that allows you to communicate effortlessly. When you’re in alignment, when your choices feel intentional, when you’re feeling energized and grateful, when you’re living your life with integrity, when you feel clear about how you want to live your life, there’s a way that expressing yourself becomes the easiest thing you’ve ever done. There’s a peace, a “rightness,” a sense of fullness. And you’re unafraid. You’ve found a way to be mindful and self-reflective. You’ve gotten real about what it is you really want from life. You’ve placed your highest priorities and values at the center of your life and you have no doubts about your decisions. There’s an openness that comes from that. You’ve won back that confidence in your own inner voice that you may have had as a young child, or perhaps you’ve developed even more as an adult. You’re fearless about sharing your truths, your perspectives, your ideas. And you’re aware of the tremendous gifts you give when you express your inner-most self so fully. This is what it feels like to so many who have chosen to live lives they truly love each and every day.

5. You feel like you’re able to be your true self, the full expression of who you are in every moment.

We all have different parts of who we are—You may be smart but also love to be silly. Or you’re determined but love to spend all day Sunday watching movies on the couch. You’re hard working but can’t wait another moment for that vacation in Hawaii. Perhaps, being a parent is the most important thing in your life, but sometimes you want time just with other adults. Or you’re the schmoozer your boss can always rely on in those sales meetings, but sometimes you just want to be the fly on the wall for a change and let someone else take the lead. You’re the one everyone goes to for strategy, and you can cry during a particularly good commercial… (the list goes on and on…)

Imagine showing all of those seemingly contradictory parts to your partner, you new boyfriend, your child, your teacher, your colleague, or your boss. Imagine what it would be like to feel comfortable being all of you. Imagine if you didn’t just feel okay doing that, but if you believed that by being so fully you, by being so open and honest about the colorfulness of your true personality, you were having a more positive impact on yourself and the people around you. Imagine if you believed that listening to your dreams, instead of setting them aside, was the key to you living a life you fully loved. Imagine being yourself without fear causing you to think about tucking some parts of you away and only letting them out in certain company. Imagine if you knew that being your full self was the only way for you to find true and lasting fulfillment. And imagine if you knew that by being your true self, in all ways, you would give more to this world than you would have ever dreamed.
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That is what living a life you truly love each and every day is like. It’s a life YOU love after all. It’s no one else’s. In a life you love, you know the things which make you unique are also your greatest gifts. You know that sharing the fullness of who you are with the world allows you to feel free and fully alive, and offer to the world gifts whose value lies beyond anyone’s imagination.

These are the five most important signs you are living a life you truly love that I’ve collected to this point. Some may ring more true for you than others. There are some signs that you might notice are missing from this list but which you know you’d include on your own.

Your signs may be different!!! I encourage you to think about what your signs are.
How would YOU be able to tell you were living a life you *truly* loved?

As you bring these images of you living a life you truly love to mind, can you *feel* it? Imagine what you feel like, the thoughts running through your mind in those moments, the way you’re breathing, the pace at which your heart beats… Just imagine!

Take a look at the worksheet below and see if it sparks any new ideas for you. And then, if you’d like to, please share your insights in the comments section by clicking on leave a reply at the top of this post so we can all benefit from adding to our growing list of signs to look out for.

I hope this little exercise and The Five Most Important Signs You’re Living a Life You LOVE have inspired you to figure out what your own unique signs are.

No one can live your life for you. No one can love your life for you. And no one can tell you exactly what a life you’d truly love each and every day would look like. Only you can do that.

The amazing thing is that YOU CAN DO IT! You can get clear on what it’d feel like for you to be living a life you truly loved. And then you can make the choice to go out and CHOOSE A LIFE YOU LOVE, each and every day!

Wishing you a life you truly love, today and every day!

~Becky

Don’t forget to share the signs you come up with in the comments section. We’d all love to add signs to the list so we can be on the search for those as well! Scroll to the top of the post to *leave a reply.*

If you’d like to live a life you love and you’re curious about what it takes to make that choice and make your dreams a reality, you can learn more at Choose A Life You Love coaching. I also offer complementary coaching consultations to everyone who makes a request!
***Email me at info@choosealifeyoulove.com to set up your complementary coaching consultation today***

 

 

Becky Emet, MSW, MBA

Career Coach | Life Coach

Choose a Life You Love founder

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Image of Maya Angelou sourced from http://lifestyle.allwomenstalk.com/inspiring-career-quotes/7/)